


Breaking Down

by vic_amy_z



Category: Franklin & Bash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vic_amy_z/pseuds/vic_amy_z
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What exactly happened to Jared during his year at boarding school and why do dorm rooms still give him nightmares?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Down

**Author's Note:**

> Following on from [_'Not According To Plan'_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/267730) and [_'Across The Line'_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/274098), this story tries to make sense of some of Peter and Jared's back story that was hinted at in the first part of this series, but it kinda got away from me. I don't have much experience writing hurt / comfort so I hope that I did okay... _(WARNING - Bullying)_

'Okay, tell me again why we waited over twenty years to do this?!' Peter asked breathlessly, looking over at Jared who was lying face down on the bed with a ridiculous grin on his face. Jared didn't answer him. He wasn't back in a place where he could form coherent sentences yet!

It had taken them over two decades, one team-building weekend and a _very_ pornographic long-distance phone call, but finally they'd ended up in bed together in the true sense of the phrase, and they were now entering week three of what Carmen had dubbed _'the most disturbing honeymoon period in history'_! Okay, so discretion might not exactly have been their buzzword recently, to the point where Carmen and Pindar had taken to knocking on _every_ door before they entered a room, ever since the incident in the bathroom when it had taken Carmen a full three days to be able to look either one of them in the eye again.

But right at that moment, when Peter was sleepy and sated and sore in all the right places, he didn't care how long it had taken them to get there, he was just stupidly happy that they were there. He turned on his side and nudged Jared over so he could lie behind him, knowing that he had at least another three minutes before Jared would gain enough powers of speech to half-heartedly protest about being forced to snuggle.

At first, Peter had wondered if it would alter their relationship; if things would be different between them or if anyone, apart from the people they lived with, would notice a change. But the only difference that Peter had noticed was the fact that you could now find lube stashed away in some surprising places and that the Janitor's closet at work had seen a lot more action recently!

A hand came over and smacked Peter in the side of the head. 'Ow!' Peter said, rubbing his ear, 'What was that for?'

'I can hear you thinking,' Jared mumbled, 'It's keeping me awake...'

'Dude, it's four-thirty in the afternoon! You're not going to sleep now. Come on, talk to me,' Peter demanded.

'Okay,' Jared yawned, 'I've got a story for you: _'Once upon a time there was a guy called Peter who got really chatty after sex until his partner had to beat him to death with his own shoe. The end'_!'

'Man, you're really grouchy for a guy who just came twice in the last hour,' Peter laughed and kissed Jared's neck, pulling his best friend closer to him. Jared grinned and Peter knew that there wouldn't be any sleeping going on for a while.

In the companionable silence, Peter risked the wrath of Jared and started thinking again. He thought about how much Jared meant to him, how close they were, how he knew Jared almost as well as he knew himself. Well, except when it came to...

Peter took a deep breath. 'Jared? Can I ask you a question?'

'If it's _'Can we go again?'_ I'm gonna need a bit longer,' Jared replied with a grin.

'What happened?' Peter asked, simply. Immediately, he felt Jared tense up so he pulled him closer, knowing that he understood what Peter was asking him. 'I know everything about you, Jared, except this. What's so terrible that you can't even tell _me_?'

'I've never told anyone,' Jared said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

'Then don't you think it's about time you did?' Peter knew that when they were like this, wrapped up together in bed, that Jared felt safest. If he was going to break down the final wall between them then this was the time to do it.

There was a pause. Jared sighed and turned over slightly in Peter's arms so that they could see each other. 'Y'know, I should have seen it coming...'

 **~~~~~~~~**

Peter and Jared had met in the summer, right before High School. To this day Jared wondered how on earth he'd been so lucky because it had been purely by chance that they'd found each other at all.

Jared's parents had been fighting all weekend. He couldn't take listening to them for a second longer so he'd left early and headed out to the woodlands behind their house. He wasn't much of an 'outdoorsy' kid, but he'd decided that anything had to be better than listening to his parents tear strips off each other for the third day in a row. Jared had expected to be alone in the woods that morning so he was surprised to find someone else already there.

He didn't recognise the other kid from school. Not being in the mood for a confrontation, Jared was just trying to sneak away quietly when he heard a voice say, 'Hey!'

'Hey!' Jared called back, keeping his tone friendly. The other kid was much bigger than him, although that was nothing new to Jared, so it paid to be cautious.

'So, is there anything to do around here?' the boy asked.

Jared came over to where the other boy was sitting on the edge of a bank created by a fallen tree, his legs dangling over the side. He decided that the boy didn't look too intimidating, so he tentatively sat down nearby. 'This is kinda it.' Jared admitted. It was a quiet, leafy suburb, outside of the city, and there really wasn't a lot to do.

'Oh,' the boy said, disappointed. He turned to face Jared. 'My Mom keeps telling me to go out and find something to do or make some new friends but this place is so quiet, you're the only other person I've met so far.'

'Don't you have any friends from school?' Jared asked, suddenly curious.

'No, we just moved. I didn't go to school here. I'm Peter, by the way,' the boy offered.

'Jared,' There was a pause while he tried to decide whether or not it was okay to ask Peter any more questions. 'So, you're starting school here now?' he ventured.

'Yeah, I'll be starting Senior High in the fall.'

'Oh, we're the same age then,' Jared said, sounding more relieved than he'd meant to.

'Really?' Peter asked, looking Jared up and down and unable to hide his disbelief.

'Yeah, _really_ ,' Jared couldn't help but laugh.

'Okay.' A grin broke out on Peter's face. 'Cool!'

They spent the rest of that day together; talking about nothing in particular, sharing jokes they probably didn't fully understand, daring each other to jump off stuff, and the million and one other things that teenage boys did when they were on their own. When it started to get late, they agreed to meet up again the next day and Jared ran all the way home, suddenly aware that he hadn't eaten anything all day.

That night, the atmosphere around the Franklin dinner table was tense but Jared barely noticed as he wolfed his dinner down. He spent the entire time talking about Peter, which pretty much set the precedent for the rest of the summer. Peter and Jared spent almost every day of the holiday together, and when they were apart, Peter was all Jared talked about. Even his Mom joked that she wouldn't know it was him these days unless every second word out of his mouth was 'Peter'!

Jared's Dad seemed less convinced about his son's new friend though, so Jared invited Peter over for dinner one night. Even though he had cleared his plate, complemented Mrs Franklin on her cooking and addressed Mr Franklin as 'Sir', Jared could just tell that for some reason, his Dad wasn't nearly as impressed with Peter as he was. This became pretty obvious a few nights later during dinner, when Jared was telling yet another tale of his adventures with Peter, and his Dad threw down his knife and fork and said tersely, 'I think we've heard quite enough about Peter Bash for one day, thank you!'

After that, Jared just spent more time at Peter's; eating dinner with his family and sleeping over there at least a couple of nights a week. Jared's Mom told him that he should be paying rent there, and Peter's Mom teased them both, saying that she was happy to have Jared over because it was the only time that Peter ever stopped talking about him! Peter had gone bright red when she'd said that and Jared had cracked up laughing, not stopping until Peter threw a football at him and threatened to leave him the next time he was stuck halfway up a tree after one of their less successful climbing experiments.

So yeah, Jared probably should have seen it coming, given that his father was such a Grade A, prize-winning asshole...

However horrified he felt when his Dad told him in no uncertain terms that he would not be going to Grant High with Peter in September, he'd be going to a private boarding school over five hundred miles away, Jared felt a thousand times worse when he had to break the news to his best friend. Peter promised him faithfully that they'd keep in touch and write to each other all the time, but Jared couldn't help feeling scared that Peter would find a new best friend once he was gone.

Because in Jared's eyes, Peter was awesome and he couldn't possibly need Jared as much as Jared needed him...

 **~~~~~~~~**

'Y'know, I was pretty convinced that you'd forget all about me the moment you went away,' Peter admitted, rearranging the pillows behind his head to find a more comfortable position.

'Really?' Jared looked up at him, the surprise on his face telling Peter that even after twenty-odd years, some days Jared was still that insecure little kid that he'd met back in the woods, who could never quite believe that someone like Peter could think that he was the best thing in the world. 'You never said anything?'

'Of course I didn't - I was fifteen!' Peter chuckled. 'Besides, I was too busy being awesome, apparently!' Jared laughed and playfully dug his elbow into Peter's ribs. Peter held him tighter to prevent any further retaliation, which Jared didn't seem to mind at all.

'Yeah, well you needn't have worried,' Jared said sadly, pulling himself further into Peter's embrace. 'I wasn't overwhelmed with an abundance of friends at that place.' Peter couldn't help noticing that to this day, Jared never referred to his school by name. In fact, he never referred to it all if he could help it.

'You ready to tell me about it?' Peter asked, a little uncertainly. The walk down memory lane had been fun while it lasted, but what happened next was the part that he really needed to hear. And he wasn't looking forward to it...

 **~~~~~~~~**

On the first day at his new school, Jared was still kind of excited, even if Peter wasn't there with him. The place was pretty amazing, with a ton of things to do and he actually found himself looking forward to being there. True to their promise to keep in touch, Jared wrote to Peter straight away to tell him about the all the great sports he'd get to try, the cool music room they got to play in and the awesome dorm room that he was sleeping in, and to Jared's delight, Peter wrote straight back.

It took a few weeks for all the new kids to find their feet in the school, but it wasn't long before the inevitable social order was established and the bullies began to emerge...

At first it was just the usual stuff; being tripped up in the hallway, name calling, wedgies in gym class. Some of the boys thought it was funny to push Jared into the girl's locker room and hold the door shut so that he couldn't get out. This usually went on until the resultant screaming from the girl's side of the door brought a teacher along the hallway to find out what was going on, at which point the other boys either ran off or pretended that they were just trying to get the door open. After the second week of this, Jared just waited patiently on the other side of the door for it to open again, although he never really understood why the girls had to scream every single time it happened.

Then they discovered that with a few carefully placed punches, Jared would fit neatly inside a locker. And so began a period in his life where Jared seemed to spend a large proportion of his time hammering on the inside of locker doors and waiting for someone to let him out. Deep down, he knew that the other boys only picked on him because he was so much smaller than they were, and felt as though a lot of his problems would be solved if he could just grow a couple more inches.

He tried not to say anything about it in his letters to Peter, skirting over the subject of friends and concentrating on telling him about lessons and sports and what they planned to do when he was home for the holidays. Some days, the thought of the holidays was the only thing that got Jared through.

As the weeks went by, Jared's torment spilled over from the hallways into the dorm room. The boys in his room had sensed that he was easy pickings and suddenly there was no escape for him. _'Why me?'_ was something that Jared often asked himself in that first lonely semester, although he guessed that the real answer was because as long as it _was_ him, then it wasn't going to be them...

Pretty soon, Jared learned the hard way that the thing with a hand in a bowl of warm water really does work. He also learned to never get into bed at all without checking between the sheets thoroughly first. That was on the days that his bed actually _had_ sheets...

The day that he was woken up by some of his dorm mates holding him down while the others tied him to the bed was the first day that he almost cracked. They had just laughed at him and left him there, and it had taken until first period for any of the teachers to notice that he was missing. By the time they'd found something to cut through the cords that his dorm mates had used, Jared was scared, humiliated and seriously doubting whether he could take much more of it. Despite this, he refused to tell anyone who was responsible. He wasn't _that_ stupid.

He sat down during prep that evening and re-read the letter from Peter that had arrived three days ago. It was short but upbeat, telling Jared about how he'd had to stay up all night to finish a science project and about tryouts for the football team. Jared pulled out a pen and some paper, and started his reply:

 _"Dear Peter. I hate it here. I want to come home but I know that my Dad would never let me. Sometimes I wonder if I could run away. Would you come too? I hate getting stuffed into lockers. I can't sleep at night because I'm scared of what they might do to me. I get sick every morning just thinking about getting through another..."_

Sadly, Jared screwed up the letter and shoved it in his pocket, too scared to even throw it away in case someone else found it. Then he started again:

 _"Hey Peter! How's it going? Hope you're okay. I'm looking forward to coming home in a few weeks. We're doing this great music project at the moment..."_

'Hey, runt!' one of the meanest kids in his grade came up to his table and snatched up the letter. 'You writing to your Mommy again?' the boy sneered. He held the letter up, scanning it quickly before saying, 'Bo-ring...' and tossing it away, laughing. And even though Jared could still feel the balled-up paper in his pocket, from the letter that he would never send, the fear that it might have been found still had his heart hammering wildly in his chest.

Jared had no clue how he made it through the final few weeks of semester, but the first thing he did the minute he got home was call Peter. Actually, the first three things he did the minute he got home was call Peter, hanging up twice because he was so nervous that Peter wouldn't want to hear from him.

The third time, Jared let it ring. 'Hey buddy! You're home!' Peter practically yelled down the phone, 'About fucking time too!'

'Peter! Watch your mouth!' came a voice in the background, followed by a slightly louder, 'Hi Jared!'

Jared laughed, so utterly relieved to hear the normality of the Bash household that all the strength went out of his legs and he slid down the wall onto the floor. 'Tell your mom _'Hi'_ from me,' Jared said, his voice shaking a little but still laughing.

'Sure. You wanna meet up tomorrow? We could take the football down to the park? I could use the practice. Plus, I've got this really cool new game, so we could...'

Jared closed his eyes and let Peter talk at him solidly for the next ten minutes, relief coming over him in waves, washing away the last few months of Jared's miserable existence.

 **~~~~~~~~**

'How...?' Peter was actually lost for words, something that didn't happen to a Lawyer very often. 'How could you not say anything? How did you manage to pretend that everything was okay?'

'Because,' Jared said, like it was obvious. 'You said it yourself - we were fifteen. And it wasn't just you, I didn't tell anyone.'

Peter wrapped his arms around Jared and held him so tightly that his partner started making comedic gasping noises. 'Sorry,' Peter said, loosening his grip a little, 'I'm just trying to make up for being such a terrible friend.'

'How? By crushing me to death? Thanks!'

'But how did I not see it then that you were so unhappy, Jared? I know I was only fifteen, but I wasn't stupid?' Peter had eventually realised, much later on, that Jared wasn't happy at boarding school, but that first Christmas he remembered Jared coming home happy and cheerful.

'Well, once I got home, I wasn't unhappy,' Jared said, reassuringly. 'We had a great holiday that year, remember?'

'I do remember eating a lot of turkey. Didn’t my Mom keep bringing us plates of sandwiches while we were trying to play _'Legend of Zelda'_?' Peter asked with a grin.

'Yeah,' Jared laughed. 'She said I was too skinny and she was trying to fatten me up. And then there was the Great Alcohol Experiment of New Year's Eve.'

'Oh god, don't remind me...' Peter groaned at the memory. His Mom had gone out for the night with friends, and Peter and Jared had been under strict instructions to stay in and behave themselves. To celebrate the New Year in style, they'd decided to mix a little of everything in the liquor cabinet so that no one bottle would look too empty. The resulting cocktail had been a heady mix that had got them very drunk and then very sick in quick succession! 'Y'know, that's the reason I can't drink Peach Schnapps to this day.'

'Yeah, I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing, dude!' Jared told him.

'But it _was_ the only time that I've _actually_ seen someone turn green,' Peter admitted, remembering the rest of the night that they'd spent on the bathroom floor, taking it in turns to throw up until his Mom had taken pity on them when she got home and put them both to bed.

'See,' Jared said, 'It _was_ a great holiday!' There was a horrible pause because both of them knew what had to come next. 'But then you went back to school...'

 **~~~~~~~~**

Peter had to be back in school a whole week before Jared did. He'd suggested that Jared could meet him after class and hang out with some of his other friends but Jared told him that he had to spend the week doing family stuff with his parents so he wouldn't be around.

It was a complete lie and Jared felt terrible about it, but the truth was that he couldn't bear the thought of seeing Peter with other friends. He felt even worse when Peter asked about meeting Jared's friends some time, because it reminded him that in a week's time, he would have to go back to school, five hundred miles away from his best friend.

That night, he begged his Mom not to make him go back to school. The only thing that she seemed mildly concerned about was the fact that he hadn't grown much while he'd been away, but still Jared couldn't bring himself to admit that school was making him physically sick on a daily basis. She promised to speak to Jared's Dad about it but he flatly refused to let Jared leave, telling him that he was getting the best education that money could buy and that he should be grateful.

Jared felt particularly grateful on his first night back when the boys in his dorm decided that lockers were so last year and proceeded try and fit him into one of their trunks. That night, still buoyed up from a couple of weeks spent with Peter, Jared had managed to grab onto of one of them while they were attempting to hold him down, sinking his teeth into the boy's hand to make him let go. He'd thought that that would be the end of it, at least for a while, but he was wrong. The next night they just put a pillowcase over his head and forced his arms behind his back to do it. Apparently, Jared was going into the trunk whether he liked it or not.

Fortunately, the fifteen minutes that Jared spent trapped inside it while they pushed it backwards and forwards and spun it across the polished dorm room floor left him so dizzy and disorientated that when they finally let him out, he fell over sideways and cut his head open on the sharp wooden edge. It was fortunate, because there was so much blood that the other kids got really scared and called for the dorm matron, which meant that Jared got to spend the night in the medical wing.

Unfortunately, it also ushered in an era of new and improved ways that they chose to torment Jared on an almost nightly basis. It didn't happen every night and it was never bad enough to get him sent to the medical wing again, but Jared soon learned that not knowing what to expect was part of the torture, and also that there are plenty of places on the human body where the bruises can't be seen.

What amazed Jared the most was that no one seemed to notice what he was going through. He considered letting his grades slip, just to see if his teachers would finally see that there was something wrong with him, but Jared was so bright that it was more of an effort to turn in badly written, incorrect assignments, than it was just to do them right in the first place. And Jared didn't have the energy for anything else at that point, other than concentrating on getting through another day.

He was even having difficulty writing back to Peter, the cheery façade getting too hard to maintain. That night he sat in the prep room, chewing nervously on his pen as he tried to think of what to say to his best friend. He'd managed to get as far as _"Hi Peter..."_.

A pale, nervous-looking boy who he recognised from his Math class came up to him. A boy who, if it wasn't for the existence of Jared, might well have been the on of the receiving end of at least some of what Jared was going through. He sidled up behind Jared and looked over his shoulder. 'Who's Peter?' he asked, cautiously.

'He's my best friend,' Jared replied wistfully, without thinking, then watched as the boy scurried off towards the table where the rest of Jared's dorm room were sitting. He appeared to relay information to them and then disappear, gratefully. It would take Jared a further nine hours to understand the significance of what had just happened...

At two o'clock the following morning, Jared felt the sheets being pulled off his bed and several hands grabbed hold of him, hauling him out of bed and onto his feet. The lights snapped on and, blinking at the sudden brightness, Jared found himself being held tightly by his arms between the two largest boys in his dorm and staring straight at Brandon, the kid who had made it his personal mission to make Jared's existence a living hell.

'Jared Franklin...' he began.

'Let me go!' Jared yelled, hoping to attract some attention. Instead, he got Brandon's fist in his stomach, the pain in his kidneys taking his breath away and making him think twice about opening his mouth again.

'So, what do we have here then?' Brandon continued in a tone of voice that made Jared's blood run cold. It was then that he noticed something behind Brandon's back - it was the box with all Peter's letters in it that Jared had kept carefully hidden at the back of his closet, underneath his sports kit.

'No!' Jared cried out, before he could stop himself. It was the worst possible thing he could have done because they knew then that it meant something to him. He tried to break the hold on his arms, tried to get away, but they just held him tighter, fingers digging into his skin hard enough to leave bruises.

Brandon pulled one of Peter's letters out of the box. 'Aww... I think it's from his _boyfriend_ ,' Brandon taunted, emphasising the last word in case there was any doubt about the accusation he was levelling at Jared. Brandon opened the letter and started to read it out to the rest of the dorm as if it was a love letter, twisting the meaning of the words until Jared didn't even recognise them any more, much to the delight of the onlookers who were laughing hysterically. When he was done, Brandon slowly ripped the letter up into little pieces, watching Jared intently as he let them flutter to the floor in front of him.

Jared tried not to react. He understood the game now...

Systematically, Brandon pulled out every one of Peter's letters, read them and destroyed them, until they were nothing more than pieces of confetti on the dorm room floor. Jared was determined not to give them the satisfaction, but he could already feel the tears burning behind his eyes.

The last thing that Brandon pulled out of the box and presented to the rest of the dorm was a photo of Jared and Peter together. It had been taken during the summer; both of them standing in Peter's back yard, grinning like idiots. Peter had given it to him for Christmas and Jared had been so careful to keep it hidden away ever since, only allowing himself to look at it if he was sure that no one else was around.

'Look! It's a picture of the runt and his boyfriend!' Brandon jeered. He held it up so everyone could see. Then he dropped the picture to the floor, smashing the frame into several pieces and shattering the glass. 'Oops...' he said, carelessly. He reached down and picked up the photo, held it up in front of Jared and slowly ripped it into pieces.

Finally, the tears slid down Jared's face...

'He's crying! It must be love!' Brandon was triumphant, cruel laughter running through the group but still they wouldn't let him go. Jared let his head hang down, tears falling to the ground, his eyes fixed on the pieces of photograph that were scattered on the floor in front of him. His mind went back to the day that picture had been taken; the first day that Jared knew he'd found his best friend.

They'd been hanging out in the park when some other kids had decided to start with them, telling them to get out of there and find somewhere else to hang out. When Peter and Jared had flatly refused, one of them had shoved Jared to the ground and then turned on Peter. But before he'd had the chance to do anything else, Peter had punched him hard in the mouth, leaving him reeling. Suddenly, the kid found that he didn't have so many friends to back him up anymore, and the group quickly left them alone.

'Impressive...' Jared had admitted, a little embarrassed as Peter had held out a hand to haul him up off the ground.

'Not really,' Peter had shrugged, 'You just need to take out the ringleader and the rest of them soon get the message.'

 _You just need to take out the ringleader..._

Suddenly, Jared was angry. In fact, he was angrier than he could ever remember being. Peter was the one good thing he had in his life, and they were trying to destroy it. If he had to spend the next few years in this godforsaken place, then they weren't going to take Peter away from him. He snapped upright, the backwards momentum taking his captors by surprise and breaking their hold on his arms.

'Hey!' one of them said, taking a few seconds to register that Jared had got free. They made a grab for him, but Jared knew that the _only_ advantage to his size was that he was faster then they were, and he intended to use it.

'Get him!' Brandon yelled, but Jared dodged between the two larger boys and, before he had time to think about what he was doing or talk himself out of it, he threw a punch at Brandon, connecting with his jaw by luck more than judgement and sending him sprawling backwards.

Jared enjoyed a split second of jubilation at the look of total bewilderment on Brandon's face. Then the pain erupted in his knuckles and Jared wished fervently that Peter had mentioned how much taking out the ringleader would hurt! Quickly figuring that nothing he did now could possibly make the situation any worse, he launched himself at Brandon before the other boy could recover from the shock of being laid out by Jared.

He drove his knees into Brandon's ribs and delivered another punch to his face. When someone tried to pull him off, Jared kicked out wildly, hitting something that elicited a yelp of pain. He and Brandon rolled across the dorm room floor, broken glass cutting into Jared's skin, although he barely noticed. He took another punch to the stomach that made him feel like he was going to be sick, but he quickly pushed Brandon off him and back down onto the floor, grabbing hold of a handful of his hair and thumping the other boy's head repeatedly into the ground.

The rest of the dorm's occupants were yelling wildly at them, but Jared was no longer sure that they were all yelling in support of Brandon. In fact, some of them seemed to be on his side.

Strong hands dragged him away again, but Jared refused to give up, running on pure adrenaline. He twisted away from the grip and got back on his feet again, driving his fist into one of the larger boys at a height than was far from gentlemanly, but it had the desired effect of making him drop to the ground like a stone, where Jared was able to deliver a further kick to his ribs.

Okay, some of the other kids were _definitely_ on his side now...

The next pair of hands that grabbed hold of Jared belonged to one of the three teachers who had been summoned by the almighty racket coming from the dorm room. The hands held on to him firmly, breaking apart the fight and pulling him away from Brandon and his gang. It took Jared a few moments to realise that the teacher was holding him back to protect the others from him and not the other way around.

Those who weren't involved in the fighting were told to get back to bed immediately before they got into any more trouble. Then Jared was escorted to the medical wing to be patched up although with all the endorphins coursing through his body, the only thing that he cared about was the fact that he'd managed to inflict enough damage not be the only one requiring medical attention.

The next day, every single boy who was involved was questioned separately but Jared kept his mouth firmly shut about what had started it all and, as far as he could tell, so did everyone else. Not owning up cost them all two weeks of detentions, which were completed in total silence, not a single person daring to make eye contact with Jared. They still seemed scared that he might tell someone what really happened that night, and that was absolutely fine with Jared.

The one good thing that happened was that he was moved to another dorm room. He wasn't sure why because as far as he knew, no one had talked, but somehow it was considered to be _'for the best'_. When Jared went to pack up his stuff the following morning, the dorm room was mercifully empty. In the centre of his bed was the box that Brandon had taken from him, and when he opened it up, inside it was every last scrap of Peter's letters and photograph. Although Jared felt oddly grateful that someone had bothered to gather them up, the pain of the previous night hit him all over again and he sat down hard on the bed, running his fingers through the fragments of friendship.

The first night that he spent in his new bed, Jared lay awake until the early hours of the morning, fully prepared for the torture to start all over again, but the night passed without incident. Apparently, his new dorm mates didn't easily forget the bruises that his old dorm mates had ended up with...

 **~~~~~~~~**

Peter knew that he was looking at Jared with total amazement and admiration. And if Jared looked a little blurry then that was just down to allergies. Because there was no way that Peter was crying, even if it was breaking him apart inside to hear what Jared had been through.

'Hey,' Jared said gently, 'I thought _I_ was the one that this is supposed to be hard for?'

Peter rolled away from him, swiping his wrist roughly across his eyes. 'Yeah, sorry,' he said, sniffing. 'Stupid allergies...' There was a silence between them again. 'I can't imagine what it must've been like for you,' Peter said finally, still staring up at the ceiling. 'I just don't know how you survived all that.'

'Some days, that makes two of us,' Jared admitted.

'You were different, y'know,' Peter continued. 'When you came home that last holiday, that's when I knew that something was wrong. I just thought that you'd found another friend who you liked more than me.'

Jared turned over and gave Peter a look. 'Christ, Peter, you were the only thing that kept me going that year.'

'I know that now,' Peter said, 'But you stopped writing to me. What was I supposed to think?'

'I don't know,' Jared shrugged. 'It just got too hard to keep pretending that everything was okay, I guess, even to you. And I thought that if I didn't write to you then you wouldn't write back, so there'd be no more letters for anyone to find...'

'I just wish you'd told me what was really going on back then,' Peter said, rolling back towards Jared and wrapping his arms around him, 'I would have happily have come up there and given those over-privileged assholes a taste of their own medicine,' he finished, meaning every word.

'Yeah, 'cause that would have helped - getting my boyfriend to fight my battles for me!'

'Hey, you know it wasn't like that between us,' Peter protested. Jared gave him a look. Then he looked down at the pair of them, naked in bed, still curled around each other. 'Okay, but it wasn't like that at the time,' Peter laughed.

Jared paused for a moment, his head resting comfortably against Peter's shoulder. 'I don't know, Peter,' he admitted, softly. 'I think a part of me stopped writing because I was kind of scared that I really was in love with you back then.'

Peter didn't know what to say to that, so he settled for just holding onto Jared for a while. He'd be lying to himself if he said that he never realised there was anything unusual about their relationship. Very few friendships started at the tender age of fifteen survived what theirs had been through, and they'd only got closer as the years went by; same college, same law school, roommates for as long as they'd both been living away from home. Everyone else at one time or another had thought that they were in love, long before either of them would have considered admitting it. Maybe everyone else had been right?

 **~~~~~~~~**

As relieved as he was to be home for the spring break, Jared knew that things between him and Peter were different. They still spent time together during the holiday, but not nearly as much as they had done before and Jared was finding it harder and harder to lie to Peter. He couldn't talk about his school friends and all the great stuff that they got up to because Jared's school life was miserable and just thinking about it make him feel sick. But the alternative was listening to Peter talk about _his_ school friends, which now included tales of cheerleaders and first dates that hurt Jared in ways he didn't want to think about.

Even Jared's Mom noticed that he was quieter and more withdrawn. He still wasn't eating properly or sleeping very well at night, and spent most of the vacation curled up on the couch, staring listlessly at the television and trying to come up with excuses not to see Peter.

Eventually, one afternoon when Jared was particularly tired and feeling like crap because he'd lied to Peter again about not being able to see him, his Mom had asked him if everything was okay at school. Jared opened his mouth and for a split second everything nearly came tumbling out; the beatings he was getting, the humiliation he was suffering, the complete and utter loneliness he felt all the time. Then his Dad came marching in to the room and told him that he should be studying and making the most of his education instead of wasting his time with _'that idiot Peter'_ or just staring at the television. Jared closed his mouth again and the moment was gone.

The day he had to say goodbye to Peter and get into his parents' car to start the long journey back to school, was one of the worst that Jared could remember. Peter had come to see him off, just like he'd done the previous two times that Jared had left for school.

'Write back to me this time, buddy, okay?' Peter said with a hopeful look on his face.

Jared couldn't bring himself to make yet another promise that he knew he couldn't keep, and he didn't trust himself to open his mouth without saying something that he might regret, so he just shrugged noncommittally.

'Fine, whatever!' Peter bit out, anger suddenly clouding his features, 'I guess you'll be having far too much fun with your rich friends. See you around, Jared...' and he jumped on his bike and rode off, leaving Jared staring at his retreating back and wondering if it was possible for him to feel any worse.

As the car pulled away, Jared couldn't help looking into the wing mirror at the spot on the sidewalk where Peter usually stood, waving manically. But today there was no one there...

Back at school, Jared's life continued to be almost as miserable as it was before. Almost. Because finally Jared was safe at night. Probably because, thanks to the occupants of his last dorm, he was now prone to violent nightmares that scared the living crap out of his new dorm mates almost as much as they scared Jared.

During the day, however, the bullies still tripped him up in the hallways, still stuffed him into lockers, stole his bag and laughed at him in class. The day that it all changed was a rainy Tuesday in gym class.

Because of the weather they were stuck indoors, which only ever meant one thing. Dodgeball. Jared didn't usually mind it too much; although he was never picked first, he wasn't picked last either because he was small and fast, even if he didn't much feel like running these days. However, as the teams took shape, he realised that nearly every single kid responsible for picking on him was on the other team. Whether he felt like it or not, he prepared himself to start running as though his life depended on it.

For the first few games, Jared took easy 'outs' as soon as he could; better to disappoint his team by 'accidentally' getting hit on the leg with a rebound ball than risk getting a ball thrown directly at his head by someone who had it in for him. Then the other team started getting tactical. It was like they deliberately kept the ball away from Jared while systematically taking out the rest of his team, until there was no one left on the court but him. And five of them.

The gym had become deathly silent. Jared's team mates looked at him sympathetically but there was nothing they could do. He was on his own. There were five balls in play and the other team had all of them. Jared stayed on the baseline, hoping that the teacher would call the game off, that the period would end, anything. He figured that eventually they'd have to make a throw, and as long as he stayed as far away from them as possible, he could end the game painlessly.

What he didn't expect was for one of the boys to roll their ball across the centre line, a few feet into Jared's half of the court. Now he had a chance but the only way that he could retrieve the ball was to go over to them and pick it up.

'It's your move, Franklin,' the teacher reminded him. He took a step towards the ball and a few of his teammates cheered him on. As he got closer, he knew that any one of the other team could easily hit him and end the game, but they were waiting. Waiting until he was as close as they could get him. There was no point in running for the ball; there was only one way that this was going to end. Finally, Jared reached the centre line.

He tried to keep eye contact with them, watching to see who was going to make the first move, but as he bent to pick up the ball he automatically looked down and that proved to be a huge mistake. The first ball hit him square on the side of the head, knocking him completely off balance, the pain exploding behind his eyes. A second hit his elbow as he pulled his arms over his head, while a third smacked into his ribs, knocking the air out of his lungs. Jared pulled himself into a foetal position as another ball hit his head again, completely unprepared for how much pain could be caused by the full force of a dodgeball as the blows continued to rain down. He could hear the other kids in the gym yelling and from somewhere there was a high-pitched noise, although Jared had no idea if it was the whistle, his ears ringing or a sound that he was making.

'Enough! Stop!' the teacher was yelling, punctuating his words with blasts on his whistle. 'You're supposed to hit him with the ball, not beat him to death with it!' He sounded angry and some part of Jared found this at least mildly gratifying. 'Get over there and sit down - you're done.'

When Jared opened his eyes, the teacher was holding out a hand to pull him up off the floor but Jared got up without assistance. 'You okay?' he asked. Jared just nodded gently, the pain in his head making him feel nauseous. 'Go and get yourself cleaned up,' he said quietly. As Jared limped towards the locker room, the other team were laughing and high fiving each other. One or two of Jared's teammates mumbled words of apology to him as he went past, but Jared didn't bother to look up.

In the empty locker room, he checked himself over in the mirror; his nose was bleeding and his eye was starting to swell up but otherwise he looked okay, even if he felt like shit. Slowly, Jared got changed, not wanting to wait until the others came in at the end of the period. He winced as he tried to get his arm into his shirt, pain shooting through his body and making his head throb even more. He sat down on the bench and waited for the wave of nausea to pass.

Without really thinking about what he was doing, Jared limped down the hallway towards the bank of pay phones. He fished around in his pocket until he found a quarter and on autopilot, he started to dial Peter's number before he remembered that even if Peter wasn't at school, he'd be unlikely to want to talk to Jared at that point. He hung up the phone and retrieved his quarter. Then he dialled his home number, hoping that his Mom would answer. After a couple of rings, the answering machine kicked in.

'Mom? Are you there?' Jared asked hopefully, leaning against the wall for support. 'Please pick up the phone... Please?' There was silence on the other end of the line. 'I want to come home, Mom. Please? I can't stay here any more. I'm so miserable. They keep...' Jared could feel the tears sliding down his face but in the quiet of the empty hallway, he couldn't stop them. 'I just... I can't...' but his sentences dissolved into wracking sobs that continued until the phone claimed his quarter and the line went dead.

Ignoring the pain in his arm as he used his sleeve to wipe his face, Jared was halfway back along the hallway when he started to wonder what was wrong with the lights because they appeared to be going out. A few seconds later it occurred to him that it might actually be his vision that was responsible for the fuzzy greyness. Then he passed out on the floor...

There was a soft murmur of voices. Jared didn't much feel like opening his eyes so he settled for listening, only the world wasn't really making much sense. He caught a couple of words like _'concussion'_ and _'parents'_ and _'concerned'_ , but he couldn't seem to put them together into a meaningful sentence so he gave up trying. When he did open one eye, the bright light shot a pain through his head that made him curl up into a ball and wish that he hadn't bothered. As he drifted back off to sleep, Jared briefly thought about the possibility that he might never open his eyes again, and the fact that he couldn't bring himself to care was what scared him the most...

Jared spent two days under observation in the medical wing before he was allowed back into school. The first night, he got a phone call from home, which was even more terrifying to Jared than being hospitalised. He wasn't clear on how much his Dad actually knew about what Jared had been through, but Leonard Franklin wasn't ever going to admit that the decision he'd made was for the good of his son.

Instead he told Jared that it was clear that a good education was wasted on him so he might as well save some money on the boarding fees. Jared was to attend High Tower Academy in LA from September. He still wouldn't be at the same school as Peter and his Dad was going to make him finish the year before letting him transfer, but it was finally going to be over. Jared was so relieved that he couldn't say anything at all, he just nodded mutely, tears rolling down his cheeks until the matron came and took the phone off him and ushered him back to bed.

Jared wanted to explain that he wasn't crying because he was sad; he was happy that he might still get to see his best friend, just happy to know that he'd be leaving, but the words got tangled up in his sobbing. The matron didn't need to know the details to see when a boy was in serious need of a mother figure, so she just sat with Jared and stroked his hair until he'd cried himself to sleep...

Once he was back in school, the remaining months passed in a haze for Jared. Word travelled fast about what had happened in the gym and the fact that Jared's parents were taking him out of school, and for the most part everyone left him alone. In fact, Jared practically became invisible, going entire days without speaking to anyone unless he was called on to answer something in class. It might sound like hell to some people but as far as Jared was concerned, he'd already been there and this was a step up.

When his parents drove him away on the final day of term, Jared stared resolutely at the road ahead, determined not to give the place even a backward glance. He'd made up his mind that as soon as they got home he was going to go straight 'round to Peter's and tell him everything, just hoping that Peter would still want to be friends.

As it turned out, Jared didn't have to tell Peter anything, or even wait that long. When they pulled into the driveway, Peter was sitting on the front step of Jared's house. He jumped up as the car stopped and Jared got out cautiously, trying to decide whether Peter was there to see him or just to tell him that he was an asshole and he never wanted to see him again.

'Is it true?' Peter asked. His face was so serious that Jared had no idea what he was asking about. 'You don't have to go back there again?'

'No.' Jared shook his head.

'Well, thank fuck for that!' Peter exclaimed, a huge grin on his face. Before he could even think about what he was doing, Jared had thrown his arms around Peter. When Peter hugged him back even harder, Jared knew that he was really home...

 **~~~~~~~~**

'And you kinda know the rest...' Jared said finally. He looked pretty exhausted, which was nothing compared to how Peter felt. Peter was beyond not having words and into a world of speechlessness that he'd never encountered before. There was a long silence, punctuated by the sounds of breathing. 'Are you sorry you asked?'

'God, no,' Peter said quickly, finding his voice, 'Never. It's just...' the words had deserted him again. 'It's intense.'

Jared smiled. 'Yeah, I guess it is, when you hear it all at once.' He took hold of Peter's hand and twisted their fingers together.

'I think you might have to be my hero for a bit though,' Peter admitted, squeezing Jared's fingers. 'Y'know, just until I remember that you're a complete dork who bugs the crap out of me!'

'I'll take that,' Jared laughed. 'I don't think I've been your hero since I organised the Cheerleader Wash at High Tower.'

'Hey, that was _my_ idea - you just took all the glory!'

'Yeah, and I got all the detentions too, if you remember?'

'Okay, fair point,' Peter conceded with a grin.

'What I've never quite understood is...' Jared continued, 'How did you know?'

'How'd I know what?' Peter asked, confused.

'How did you know that I wasn't going back to that school again? And how did you even know when I was getting home, come to that?'

'Um...' Peter could feel a blush starting to rise on his cheeks. 'I think I might have threatened to camp out on your parent's doorstep if they didn't tell me.' Jared turned and stared, wide-eyed at Peter. 'I think your mom told me that I was _'getting you back'_ , as she put it, just so I'd go away and stop lowering the price of real estate in the neighbourhood!'

'Jesus, Peter - no wonder my Dad's never liked you!' Jared chuckled.

Peter thought back to the day that Jared had come home, the day he knew that nothing would ever come between them again. He blushed again at the memory, because it wasn't just the fact that Jared came home that made him so happy that day.

'Y'know, that was the first time that we ever hugged each other,' Peter admitted finally.

'Really?' Jared asked, surprised. 'I mean, it wasn't like we didn't go on to hug each other a million times after that and a whole lot more besides. How come you remembered it?'

Peter hesitated for a second, but then reasoned that if Jared was going to be honest with him, they he should really do the same. 'Well, I guess I might have been a bit in love with you too, even back then...'

Jared's answer to that was to kiss Peter. Softly at first; an expression of tenderness and affection, then deepening into want, need and something a whole lot dirtier. Jared was pressed up against Peter and the full body contact had him moaning with pleasure, desperate for more as he pulled Jared into him.

When they finally broke apart, Peter took a deep breath. 'Jared? Can I ask you a question?'

'Okay, but this time it better be _'Can we go again?'_ ' Jared replied with a grin, planting kisses over Peter's neck and down his chest.

'Oh, I think that... could probably...' but Peter had already forgotten that he even had a question...

 **~~~~END~~~~**


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